Body and Mind Modification

By Xah Lee. Date: 2003-11-29

A girl with ear piercing, labret piercing, two piercing on each nipple, two piercing below each collar bone, and a branding on her torso, and a staple-like thing stuck in her mid chest. (photo from http://bmezine.com/.)

The human animals have a thing about their bodies. The most common in 21st century in North America are ear-piercing, tattoo, muscle-bulking (aka body building), and breast augmentation, male circumcision. Less common includes body piercing (naval, eyebrow, tongue, lip, nose (ubiquitous in India), nipple, genitalia). More exotic include branding, scarring, Chinese foot-binding (female), waist reduction (female), penis enlargement, castration, neck-stretching (female), lip stretching, breast flattening, and various types and degrees of mutilation. These on the whole are call
body modification.

Some of these are not of individual-voluntary, but mandated by the community and executed or enforced by family members (e.g. male circumcision in many Western countries, female circumcision in some Africa or Middle East countries, nose piercing of India, facial tattoo in some regions.). Most of these are done for esthetic purposes, thus most of them a custom of females.

In affluent Western societies, exotic Body Modification has become a cultish art-form practiced by a handful industrial hippies or gangsters. They include multiple piercing and whole-body tattoo, enlargement of earlobe, elongation of labia minora. And in extreme cases bifurcation of the tongue, filing or sculpting of teeth, and implanting spherical material under the skin (arm, eyebrow, penis).

A girl practicing waist reduction. She has 36 cm waist line. Assuming the cross-section of her tummy is perfectly circular, then the diameter of her waist is about 11.5 cm (diameter × π = circumference). We hyperbole a curvaceous female figure hour-glass. Here the corsetry community hyperboles it “wasp”. (the subject in the photo is “spook”, photo from http://www.staylace.com/pinups/spook/index.html.)

One can get deep into these things, like religion. You'll have a taste of it if you ever got into body-building or
anorexia nervosa
. It's a matter of thought. The human mind is almost like a blank slate, that can branch into infinite number of unfathomable pursuit of spiritual niches and thinking patterns and thus behaviors, from extreme cults to occults. To a ordinary citizen of a well-to-do society like American, it is appalling, whose lifestyle is equally appalling to another.

The one-track mind is not limited to pursuit of body-modification. The thought pattern can be a fixation, for which we have the word fetish, from foot to shoe to underwear, sometimes phallus. Some statistically deviant thought patterns are classified into several psychological disorders or pathologies like obsessive-compulsive behavior. Not all crotchets are socially negative. For example,
Gandhi
(1869 – 1948) is into fasting-expression and loin-cloth life-style, is almost universally regarded as a hero or role model (after-the-fact). So are there historic celebrities who lead a stoic or spartan life. More common is religious devotees like monks and priests who practice celibacy, which in massive numbers results in extinction of the specie. (many of them actually practice deviant debauchery.)

Castration

2006-10-08

Is castration cutting off of the balls, penis, or both? And if just balls, can one still have erection?

According to wikipedia article: Castration, we infer that it's seldom the case just the penis. However, i think that happens too.

Castration is quite a fascinating idea. First of all, we learn
immense
ethological and
ethnological
info about the nature of males from the social and
historical practices regarding castration; why it is done; how it is
done. (by looking into cultures and time periods where castration is
widely practiced. e.g. Chinese and Middle Eastern eunuchs, and
European Castratos (castrated male for sing Church songs)).
Castration is also fascinating from the scientific, biological
aspects. Namely, what happens to a man with respect to physiology, when his
penis, or balls, are cut off?
We also learn from the practices and knowledge of castration on
animals raised to be slaughtered by human animals. (i.e. ox,
studs… how human societies practice castration to control the
breeding of a range of other animals)

We learn, that the balls and the penis, is what makes men man. Not
just physical appearance of the jutting meat between the legs, but as
well as the aggression, characteristics, behavior, mental makeup. And
by comparison and contrast, we learn much about the pussy sex as well,
of their nature body and mind, and consequently their social roles
with respect to the entire human animal history.

Now, at a individual and sexual level, castration is also
interesting. Can a man sans testicles, still have erection? If so,
whwat's the effect on his sexual performance? Suppose that ball-less-ness
has no effect on erection (besides the lack of interest). Now, that
would make the person in some sense a superior sex machine. In that,
he's not tethered by the male hormone (with effects such as rashness,
machismo anxiety, impotence), and, his genitalia has a clean and
functional physical outlook with respect to copulation. Namely: nothing
but a penetrator! (we here presume, that the testicle removal procedure is
technologically advanced, in that the area looks smooth and beautiful
without any scars. For example, modern castration method by chemical
means does not involve any cutting.)

Continuing in this thought… with elements of science and technology, with our advancement in biology, genetics,
prosthesis et
al, we might create a man who is in every way a man, except that he is
in full control of his male hormones, and between his legs there's
just one pure instrument of fucking without a susceptible and vulnerable
baggage. The male hormone part can be a artificial device embedded in the
body and released regularly, or the person can be genetically
engineered so that a “improved” version of “testicles” is tucked
elsewhere in his body (say, in the abdomen, analogous in location of
female's ovaries).

In the above, we considered some aspects of a ball-less man.
Now… consider castration as cutting off just the penis, i.e. a
penis-less man.
(See: Penis removal)
That would, create a man fully intact with his
masculinity in behavioral patterns, but sans a penis to vent it. I
suppose, this would create a wretched being. Though, this wouldn't be
much different than natural
butch-dykes or lesbians taking male hormones. From this aspect, we see what is wrong in today's gender feminists.

Now, consider castration as wiping off both the balls and penis clean. This, i think, is historically done of eunuchs in China. This would also, create some wretched being. From the physiology point of view, it is interesting in that the “guy” is totally flat down there, with a pee-hole. He would probably have to squat to pee. And in general, the person is essentially made into a woman but sans the benefits of a woman. Namely, the person is devoid of both masculine and feminine hormones, and he is devoid of the alluring ripe tits or the meaty hindquarters. Nor the motherly reproductiveness and pregnancy. And most importantly, a lack of the nether canal that gives women the god-send pleasure no male possess. Such a “male” is kinda depressing. Modern male-to-female transsexuals, of course, employ several means surgical and hormonal, to fix these problems. (e.g. estrogen, breast implants, scalpel-carved vagina) Now, from the perspective of sexual slaves and sadomasochism in BDSM circles, a person with penis and balls both wiped off would make quite a special sex toy. After all, there are still two orifices.

Capon = Cock without a Cock

A capon is a castrated rooster. In this procedure the testes of the cock are completely removed; a surgical procedure is required for this as its sexual organs are not external (most birds, the rooster included, do not possess a penis). As a result of this procedure certain male physical characteristics will develop, but stunted: • The comb and wattles cease growing after castration, so the head of a capon looks small. • The hackle, tail and saddle feathers grow unusually long.

Caponization also affects the disposition of the bird. Removal of the bird's testes eliminates the male sex hormones, lessening the male sex instincts and changing their behavior: the birds become more docile and less active and tend not to fight.

This seems to explain the unending war in human history. It's all cock's fault.
See:

This procedure produces a unique type of poultry meat which is favored by a specialized market. The meat of normal uncastrated cocks has a tendency to become coarse, stringy and tough as the birds age. This process does not exist in the capon. As caponized cocks grow slower than entire males they accumulate more body fat; the concentration of fat in both the light and dark areas of the capon meat is greater than in that of the uncastrated males; overall, it is often thought that capon meat is more tender, juicy, and flavorful than regular chicken.

Body Building

2006-10-09

Body building is a complex science. Body building is unnatural,
whose goal is to increase muscle bulk. (as opposed to, being strong,
flexible, powerful, fast, or skillful for particular physical tasks) The result
of body building, its looks, is hideous. However, the science of how
to bulk your muscles, is quite fascinating and complex. Body building
today, is not just going to the gym regularly and push yourself
hard. You have to follow some scientifically devised routines
precisely, down to the precise weights and number of repetition in
using weight-machines, and follow a regime of diet, often involving
technological morsels in the form of pills and powders (usually particular formulas of protein), as well as
controlling when you should eat and how many times you should eat.

Reading any body building magazine or literature (such as wikipedia article: Body building), it is almost like reading a text book or bleeding-edge research on nutrition science and micro-physiology.

But of course, for just about any competitive individuals sports today (track and field, cycling, tennis, swimming…), they have all turned into a regiment of science. Simple minded hard-work and determined will are no longer sufficient.

Body building as a community has one unusual element: a fixation. This
is a psychological phenomenon. Body builders, are trained to
constantly think and picture themselves of a ideal physique. The daily
physical training and diet is the basis of a conditioning ritual. This
mind (and body) conditioning is severe enough to influence one's
thought pattern and personality. In a sense, it is similar in form to
Eastern religions. Perhaps we could say it's a scientific
reincarnation of yoga! (there is a hot debate whether body-building
should be introduced to prisons. The nay-sayers say it strengthen
criminals. The promoters say it pacify thugs.)

Note: A bulked up big guy does not necessarily fight well, and usually is a lousy fighter. Think of it this way: if you want to run fast, you train sprinting, if you want to lift heavy weight, you train in weight lifting, if you want to kill or damage another human animal, you train in martial arts. Each of these have different purpose, focus, and thus different training routine. Likewise, if you are a dedicated body builder, you will not be able to run faster than the worst sprinter, nor lift more weight than the armature weight lifter, and you'll be trivially defeated by a street fighter. However, you'll have bigger muscles than them all.

By observing professional athletes in different areas, we can see what that particular sport will make your body look like. For example, look at the athletes in body building, weight lifting, swimming, sprinting, boxing, bicycling… etc. Weight lifters usually are big, short, round and heavy guys with lots of fat on their body. Swimmers tends to be thin and tall, but also with some body fat. Sprinters have hard, solid, big muscles, no fat. Cyclists are almost without fat at all, thin arms, frail frame, but huge, dense, watermelon-sized thigh.